Freedom Friday – Protecting American Mining Jobs

August 4, 2017

Overturning President Obama’s political EPA regulations.

Problem:

In January 2017, President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a regulation that would usurp states’ regulatory authority and needlessly duplicate state and federal requirements for the hardrock mining and mineral processing industry.

High costs of compliance with the rule will put a damper on domestic mineral production while leading to an increase in American reliance on foreign metals and minerals. The result of this rule will be felt far and wide as the domestic manufacturing, energy, and national security sectors are put at a major disadvantage and local economies lose out on high-paying jobs.

Solutions:

This proposed rule must be rejected in order to protect our economy, ensure global competitiveness of resource extraction companies, deliver affordable American energy, and provide good-paying jobs.

Earlier this year, I led a letter to the House Appropriation Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies asking to protect the mining industry and job creators by prohibiting federal funding from being used to implement the proposed rule. The Committee honored my request and my proposed language was included in Section 433 of the Subcommittee’s Fiscal Year 2018 Appropriations bill. It is my hope that Congress will pass this bill into law later this year.

This week, I also co-led a letter with fellow Western Caucus Members to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt calling on the EPA to scrap the Obama-era rule.